


No One Knows Who I Am

by Actually_Felicity_Smoak



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-25 15:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actually_Felicity_Smoak/pseuds/Actually_Felicity_Smoak





	No One Knows Who I Am

Who are you?

Describe Yourself.

For most people, that begins with a physical description. I'm 5'3". I'm 6'2". I'm 50 kilos. I'm 16 stone. My skin is dark, or pale, or bronze. My hair is red and tightly curled; my hair is black and straight. 

Even when you have no identity you're certain of. Even when your world's collapsing around you and you can no longer claim the labels you once had -- you're no longer a wife, or a student, or a father, or a Star Wars fan. At least you have something you can anchor on, something on which to rebuild. You will always have your body.

Mystique doesn't have that.

In some ways it's a luxury. A freedom. Millions of dollars are spent each year as people try to change their appearance. Hair dye, tattoos, plastic surgery, designer clothes. Mystique doesn't need pills to lose weight.

And yet...

And yet...

We alter our appearance because it matters. A new shade of lipstick can make you more confident. A suit and tie can make you a better negotiator. The right pair of boots can make people scramble out of your way. When you change what you look like, you change who you are.

Identity is that core at the center of you, the things that have never changed. The person who can change everything has no identity at all.

Mystique is no one. 

\------------------------------------

Throughout our lives, we experience events that break us down, tear away the lives we knew, the world we understood, tear away our very selves. What you thought you knew, who you thought you were, descends into chaos and static, and your life as you know it is over.

Mystique has experienced more of those deaths than anyone.

For a while Mystique toyed with picking an appearance. It would be simple enough. Just decide on a sex, height, weight, hair color, and stick with it. No more uncertainty.

But it didn't work. It couldn't. For one thing, the mutation was based on not having a stable appearance -- Mystique couldn't change identities while clinging desperately to a single identity. For another, it didn't solve the fundamental problem. There was still no true, core self that fueled the outward appearance, and Mystique knew that even if no one else did.

And so back to the old days, of change, and chaos, and unreliability. Of picking up identities, and then dying when it came time to discard them.

\------------------------------------

When a plastic tunnel is pounded by hail, it will start singing.

The hail strikes randomly. But somewhere, in that random noise, occasionally two hailstones will hit with just the right time delay to match the natural frequency of the tunnel. Those sound waves get amplified, and the others don't. So even though the noise is random, specific tones get "pulled" out of the chaos, magically, naturally.

Anything that has a natural frequency will do the same. It's how crystal radio sets work. It's how singers can shatter glass. All musical instruments are played by imparting random movement to something with a natural frequency.

Out of a meaningless, muddled mess, a single pure tone is formed.

If you look for identity and solidity in the hailstorm, you will find nothing but despair. There is no constancy to be found there.

But consider the tunnel. The tunnel requires no special effort to provide consistency. It will provide the same tone, the same song, no matter the circumstances. Pound it with a hailstorm; blow wind through it; strike it with an enormous mallet; the tunnel responds the same.

\------------------------------------

Who are you?  
Describe yourself.

I am a mutant.  
I am a fighter.  
I am passionate.  
I am strong.

What is identity? What does it mean to say that you are or are not the same person you were yesterday?

Philosophers call it the ship of Theseus. The atoms in your body are in different configurations than they were seconds ago. The atoms themselves are replaced every 7 years. By what right do you claim to be the same person?

If you try to pin it down, you cannot avoid the conclusion that identity doesn't exist at all.

Throughout our lives, we experience events that break us down, tear away the lives we knew, the world we understood, tear away our very selves. What you thought you knew, who you thought you were, descends into chaos and static, and your life as you know it is over. And yet, each time, out of the ashes of the old identity, the same patterns emerge. I am no longer a student, but still I love learning. I have refined my moral code, but still I aspire to honor. I have changed my craft, but still I value craftsmanship

Like hail on a plastic tunnel, the same responses emerge no matter how different the situation. 

Every change, in fact, gives us a new opportunity to understand ourselves. Each death, however painful, pares away the fluff, the details that feel central but are in fact peripheral. 

Mystique has experienced more of those deaths than anyone. 

Gender is the first identity to solidify. True, Mystique has no fixed set of genitalia. But gender isn't about the placement of your urethra; it's about the roles you fill in society, the feelings inside you, and the ways in which you perform societal interactions. So why shouldn't Mystique identify as a woman? She reclaims her pronouns, first of all. 

From that basis, others are built. What she believes in. What she will fight for. Sometimes she identifies incorrectly, and those transformations hurt more than usual. But each time she emerges -- not more broken, but more pure. 

Mystique, more than anyone, is herself.


End file.
